National Media, politicos carefully watch northern Colorado

Outsiders deride Greeley for the distinct smell that’s lingered in the air for decades, so Matt Taibbi laughs when reminded of the coarse language he used to describe it.

Taibbi, who writes a political column for Rolling Stone magazine, wasn’t the first taken to describing Greeley’s earthy aroma as stomach-turning, and he certainly won’t be the last.

Outsiders just don’t understand, people around town will tell you. That’s the smell of money.

But this year ” if the attention Greeley and the rest of northern Colorado has been getting from national media and national political groups is any indication ” that smell that literally rises from the ground up isn’t the only thing outsiders are noticing about Greeley. In fact, if you believe the opinion of many around the United States, Greeley this year is ground zero for how the country’s electorate is changing.

Taibbi’s column “The Death of a Red State” ran in late October in Rolling Stone and recounts ” using Greeley as an example ” how traditionally Republican areas in Colorado such as Greeley and Weld County could be turning the state toward Democratic choices for office, starting with Barack Obama and trickling down to other races.

In Greeley, lawmakers such as Rep. Marilyn Musgrave ” a “symbol of the Bush era,” Taibbi says ” have changed the landscape for Democrats hoping to gain ground.

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Musgrave’s social conservatism on issues such as gay marriage, Taibbi reasons, aren’t nearly as popular with new voters in Weld, who are overwhelmingly younger and more Latino than in the past.

“What I saw was more or less expected,” Taibbi said. “The more rural you get, the more Republican you get.”

Population centers such as Greeley and Fort Collins are increasingly turning toward Democrats, he said, because of economic changes, as well. Fort Collins has a lot of new energy, new economy business, which typically lean Democratic as well, he said.

“Right now you have a situation where it’s hard to find an economic reason to vote Republican,” Taibbi said.

That’s not to say that the election will be a landslide for Dems, he said. It’s coming right down to the wire, but he still thinks Obama will win Colorado if urban centers can get out the vote.

“It’s all about where people are living nowadays,” Taibbi said.

David Sirota, a Denver-based, nationally syndicated columnist, said Colorado’s population growth has made it significant in the national polls. Weld, he said, is one of a handful of battleground regions in the country where the fight is on for where the country is going.

Sirota said that fascination comes from Weld residents already dealing politically with issues such as water and agriculture, which will take on increasing importance nationally in the future. People are watching to see how northern Colorado deals with these issues as a sign of what’s to come for them, he said.

Northern Colorado could even set the model for how political parties will win races across America in the future, depending on how different candidates do in the region, Sirota said.

For instance, if Democratic challenger Betsy Markey manages to beat Musgrave, still not a foregone conclusion despite Markey being up in some ” mostly internal, Democratic ” polls, campaigns could take cues from her campaign on how to beat incumbents in similar places.

But that doesn’t even take into account the region’s legions of diehard Musgrave fans who always come out to vote on Election Day, nor does it count Weld’s truly conservative base, which still makes up the majority.

“I don’t think they’re changing that much,” said Ed Jordan, chairman of the Weld County Republicans. “I think the Republicans are still strong here. … If anything, I’ve seen more excitement this time (from Republicans) than I’ve seen in a long time.”

Republicans are still the largest voting bloc in Weld, Jordan said.

Of Weld’s roughly 110,000 registered voters, 29,000 are Democrats, 37,000 are unaffiliated and 43,000 are Republican. This year, however, there are more new unaffiliated voters than either Democrats or Republicans, and new Democrat registrations are outpacing new Republican registrations, according to the Weld County Clerk and Recorder’s Office.

More than 8,200 new voters have registered as unaffiliated this year compared with more than 5,900 new Democrats and 5,300 new Republicans.

Media are misrepresenting and overblowing just how much gain Democrats are making in places such as northern Colorado, Jordan said. And they’re using polls to do it, he said.

“I always ran behind in the polls, and I always won,” Jordan said.

It is notoriously difficult for Democrats to win in Weld, with Gov. Bill Ritter and state Rep. Jim Riesberg being the most recent significant wins for Dems here.

But David Delgado, chairman of the Weld County Democrats, said three things have predicated change: a growing Latino vote; large growth in the southern, more liberal part, of Weld; and the number of people who have grown tired of politics.

“It’s definitely a trend,” Delgado said of the increasingly Democratic numbers. “I don’t know how long it’ll continue.”

But, Delgado said, many Democrat candidates do look at Weld as a place where if they minimize losses or break even, they’re happy.

“Weld County is not one that’s ever going to be a liberal pocket,” Delgado said. “But I think it’ll be a while before the pendulum swings back” to Republican.

“If you can win Weld, like Ritter did, that goes a long way to winning the state,” said Dave Loftis, who runs the northern Colorado blog network “Wide Streets.”

Loftis said national politicians, particularly Democratic ones, looked at how Ritter won, where he won in traditionally unsavory areas of Colorado for Democrats, and then took aim to change Colorado’s nine electoral votes from red to blue.

“There are kinks in the Republican armor,” Loftis said.

“Look, there are nine votes,” Loftis said national Democratic political brass must have told themselves, “Let’s go get ’em.”

» From Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone: “But in truth it’s people like this, in places like this, who are on the front lines of one of the great cultural showdowns in our history. … (A) contest between those who embrace the multicultural future and that segment of white America that is still holding its breath, waiting for the Earth to start spinning backward and erase all the unpleasant changes.

“In Greeley, as in most of America, those two groups are defined by their racial attitudes ” fault lines that these days are most visible in the battle over immigration.”

» From Jennifer Steinhauer, New York Times: “We’re here in the town of Greeley … where the battle between Democrats and Republicans centers around the economy and immigration, both hot-button issues here for the better part of two years.”

» From Kirk Johnson, New York Times, on mail-in ballots making the difference in northern Colorado: “In coming up with strategies to get out the mail-in vote in Colorado, both campaigns have focused on making the mail-in voters feel part of a bigger movement. … Sue Friede, an office manager in Greeley, said her ballot was ready to go but she did not trust the United States mail, so she said she would hand-deliver her vote for Mr. Obama to the election offices. ‘I’m paranoid,’ Ms. Friede said. ‘I just feel like every vote is so important this year you can’t take a chance.’ “

» Rowan Philp, The (South Africa) Times: “Rural northern Colorado is expected to decide where the mountain swing state’s nine electoral college votes will go ” potentially, votes which could either put Barack Obama past the winning post, or John McCain, Palin’s running mate, back in the race.”